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I’ve been giving my goals some thought (some less than others) but here they are. I’m also going to tape them to my mirror so I remember what goals I set. Here we go:

2018 Resolutions

Query 5 agents by August

Finish the 1st draft with necessary edits

Have 3 BETA readers (at least)

Research agents

Write and polish query letter

Send

Reach goal weight by August 31st by cutting back sugar and working out more.

Make my marriage a priority by having at least 12 dates with my hubs and holding family counsels.

Go to the temple at least twice (DC will be closing in March until 2020 – just thought I’d explain the low number).

Service – do one service activity a month.

MOVE!

Read 25 books. At least two need to be on writing and three be church books.

Mommy/Son dates – Take time for just Nicky and me by going on at least 6 outings together.

As you can see – I’m making dating my family a big priority this year – someone’s desperate… I’m excited and nervous about my goals – mainly the writing one. I realized a few weeks ago that I hold back because I get anxiety about the whole submission process. I figure if I make it a goal then my pride and stubbornness will overpower the anxiety and I’ll finally take the next steps. We’ll see. An unwritten goal is to blog and journal more – so hopefully you’ll hear from me more (if that’s what you want).

I mentioned in a previous post that I bought a laminator and have been making family home evening packets. A lot of mine come from Pinterest, but this week I decided that we needed to learn about obedience (after Stormy ran into a parking lot and continued running even after I told him to stop) and what I found on the interwebs just weren’t cutting it for my two year old. So I decided to gather things from different sources and compile my very own.

Now, we have a board we’ll use later when the kids are older to make assignments for family home evening (Christmas gift from my SIL – I’ll post a picture at some point), but for now, it’s all on mom and dad, so at least for now things should go together nicely.

We started with a prayer.

Then we sang the first verse of “Nephi’s Courage” from the Children’s Songbook. Fun fact – I didn’t know that was the title until I had to Google it. I’ve always just called it “I will go, I will do.”

Then we had a story/lesson David’s Lesson, which I pulled off the LDS.org website from the Friend. (I printed and laminated this for my folder)

For our activity we played Obedience Games that I found on a homeschooling website. We did “Mother says” first but I think we’ll play one of these games once a day until my child stops doing suicide missions into the library parking lot.

We closed with a prayer and then it was time for treats. Stormy and I made Rice Krispies Treats (there’s a video in that link too in case you’ve never made these before…not that I’m judging)

So I’m adjusting to life with two kiddos. Today I thought we’d venture out with daddy to the grocery store. I got Stormy ready and then went to get myself ready. I grabbed a dress and pair of leggings from on top of a basket of clean laundry. I put the leggings on, which felt cold and then prepared to put on the dress. That’s when I got a whiff of it…cat urine. I feel like there’s a distinct “cat urine” smell, it’s kind of like chewing gum with pineapple flavoring…not the taste, I’ve never tasted it because I don’t like gum and because it smells like cat urine to me. Anywho, I threw the dress into the dirty laundry and then realized the awful truth about the leggings, they weren’t cold, they were wet. As I had just added both items to the top of clean laundry (yeah, yeah, I’m behind on putting it away) I know the urination happened during the night. A night where the baby kept me up for hours and the cat consistently tried to smother me in my sleep.

I peeled off the leggings and washed my legs. Then I had to find something else comfortable enough to wear. I finally got dressed and then grabbed Gertie to put her in her car seat. Right before I put her in the seat she spit up, lots of it, all over both of us. So back to the bedroom we went. I changed her and then changed myself (after finding something else I’d feel comfortable in – the postpartum belly is worse than anything). Oh yeah, during all of this I’m trying to keep the cat in the office because he is officially banned from the rest of the house but Chewy was in there for something and so he kept escaping. It was a mad house here. But we made it – for the grocery shopping done and the laundry but my goodness, I guess this is just a taste of what’s to come.

In keeping with my goals – here is my Pinterest project of the week (it won’t always be Pinterest…but considering how many pins I have it will mostly be Pinterest…have I said Pinterest enough in this post?)

I used self lamenting sheets I got at Target but also found on Amazon. And Velcro circles I got at Walmart. I already had the Velcro from when I made Stormy’s quiet book. One change I made was I put the words on the back so I could have them if I didn’t remember.

Also, this is my first time with set laminating sheets and I didn’t realize I needed to cut the print out how I wanted it before laminating it. But it’s okay because I’ve decided to put it in a binder with hopefully other Pinterest pins to come.

I also started Stormy’s PECS notebook. My nephew had one these when he was younger to help him with learning to speak so I figured we’d cut down on frustration at the house and give Stormy another form of communicating in addition to his limited verbal and sign. He already saw the picture of popcorn and asked (verbally) for popcorn at snack time. It’s so cute the way he says “popcorn” and “please”

I already have a ton more to add to the food page, but this is the start.

For months I’ve known about story time at the library but Stormy would always be napping whenever they had it! He has finally moved to one long nap a day so we went to our very first Mother Goose Story Time on Tuesday.

I think we were both a little intimated by how many people there were. Stormy kept looking at all of them and he barely focused on what was happening. But we got some songs in and overall I think he enjoyed it. I think this will be something we do from now on (even though mom (aka me) was having social anxiety…but the things I do for my little Stormy).

At the end of story time the librarian pulls out all the toys and the kids can go wild. Stormy left me immediately and got into the thick of things. Every once in a while he glanced up to make sure I was still there but overall I think I had more separation anxiety than he did.

Looking at this picture now – I can see that it was a victory that Stormy allowed me to put his name tag on the front and that he left it alone. Looks like most of the other kids his size had them out of reach on their backs.

As you leave the librarian stamps your hands…I mean, the kids hands. I was showing Stormy how it’s done.